John Henning’s miniature casts of the Parthenon frieze

In 1811 the Scottish sculptor John Henning (1771-1851)
saw the Parthenon sculptures for the first time and was so struck
by them that he immediately applied to Lord Elgin for permission to
draw and model from them. Henning carved slate moulds of the
Parthenon frieze in order to produce plaster casts two inches high,
and a total of 24 feet and four inches long. He also carved
moulds of the Phigalian or Bassae frieze, which the British Museum
had acquired in 1814. This project was to take him 12 years to
complete.

In his advertisement of 1820, Henning stated
that his aim was to reproduce the frieze as faithfully as possible
and to restore the fragmentary areas, giving them the same
character. In order to do this he consulted reproductions of
the drawings by Jacques Carrey who had recorded the Parthenon
sculptures in 1674 before the extensive damage caused by the
explosion in 1687. Although he found them lacking in detail,
these drawings proved invaluable to Henning and enabled him to
establish the order of the procession depicted in the frieze. Other
potential sources that Henning may have used for his
restorations include the drawings by Feodor Ivanowitsch who had
been on the Athenian Acropolis, employed by Lord Elgin to make on
the spot records. The British Museum had acquired these drawings
along with Elgin's collection in 1816. Further sources
include volume II of the Antiquities of Athens by James Stuart and
Nicholas Revett which reproduced drawings made of the sculptures in
1765 by William Pars.

Henning sold his casts in handsome mahogany cabinets, each
containing nine drawers, or framed in decorative woods such as the
splendid set in Morocco and root of oak bought by George IV for £42
in 1821. John Henning, along with his eldest son (John Junior),
also worked on the Screen at Hyde Park Gate in 1827 producing a
carved frieze of horsemen loosely based on the Parthenon
frieze. A year later they began work on the
newly built Athenaeum Club at Waterloo Place.

The Club had been founded in 1824 for
'Literary and Scientific men and followers of the Fine Arts’. The
building, designed by Decimus Burton (1800-1881), was part of the
new civic architecture in Greek style by which London was
embellished after the Battle of Waterloo. In a letter to
Decimus Burton, dated 28 July 1828, Henning Junior confirmed that
he would execute in Bath stone a continuous frieze about 260 feet
in length, to extend round three sides of the building.
Although it is the same height (three feet, three inches), the
Athenaeum frieze, incorporating scenes from the north, south and
east sides of the Parthenon frieze, is about half the length of the
524 feet long original. Henning chose to show a cavalcade on
the flanks of the building, while the principle east facade carries
a selection of the figures from the pedestrian procession of the
north, south and east sides of the Parthenon. These finally
converge on the seated gods and, in the very centre, the scene of
the handling of the sacred robe or peplos for
Athena.

This work marked the high point in John
Henning's career. Unfortunately, his casts of the Parthenon frieze
proved so popular that pirated copies were soon being sold
throughout Europe. In 1835 a French firm boasted of selling
6,000 copies of Henning's casts. This not only ruined Henning
financially but also caused him additional distress, because many
of them were inferior in quality.

Henning tried to find other ways to increase
his income from the results of his lengthy labour by working with
the engraver Mr Freebairn in 1845, to produce a series of
engravings of the Parthenon and Bassae friezes. However, only trial
proofs were made before Freebairn's sudden death put an end to the
project. Henning’s original slate moulds of the Parthenon and
Bassae friezes were donated to the British Museum in 1938, some of
which, along with their plaster casts, are on display in the
Enlightenment Gallery and in Gallery 49. The Museum also has a
complete framed set.